Shadow Work

Some questions seem to have no answers. The pain of them lingers somewhere deep in the body, invisible because it’s so built into our structures we can’t see it. It’s built into our foundation, our bones— it’s hidden inside the sturdy stable thing that holds everything else together. I don’t know how to go about picking it apart but I know it needs to reveal itself, it needs to change. Something needs to erupt forth and blossom anew if I can muster the bravery to bear it.

The question is then, how do we change the foundation to allow the core to blossom. Can I, the true me, the secret me beneath myself, the one that is separate from the social norms and parent’s expectations, the one who thinks unusual things in unusual ways, can I invade myself and pop up like weeds, blossoming in every nook and corner. Can I replace myself?

It hurts to move forward. I often feel paralyzed, so tender and so in need of being comforted. I wonder if this new skeleton can embrace me, can hold the current me that is so delicate?

Who is the I to which I speak in my mind? Who is the truth that works on instinct and deep knowledge, that internal decision maker I have to yet learn how to trust? Why did no one ever tell me she was there, and why did it take so long for me to realize how desperately I need her?

I hope we can fall apart so that we can rebuild something integral, that we can bloom like the dandelion and spread our seeds in the winds of change, and grow a new skeleton in which to lean into. I hope in learning to look at the thing behind the thing, our vulnerability can find comfort in asking the questions together.

Made by Surrender

Epoch

20.75 x 29.25 in. Watercolor and Acrylic with ink on paper. 2016.

SOLD

An epoch. An era. An end and a shift. This is how things grow-they are born from the ashes of a time that is no longer true and the memory of that history that will help propel us forward to grow anew.

Marrow

12 x 22 x 3 in. Porcelain and mixed media. 2018.

My Apology

12 x 16 in. Watercolor on Paper. 2016

SOLD

The tenderness of that feeling. Of being in the wrong. Of being human and thus simple and complex. Of being something who grows slowly and compares oneself to others. Of being made of skin and bone and guts and guts and guts. The heart is just a piece, because remorse is felt in everything. —.To be the other. The receiver of injury, the holder of a long built trust grown tenderly and seasonally like a berry, so delicious to taste but easy to bruise. To be the giver of forgiveness and welcomer of human mess. The heart is just here: available, confused. —.We hold each other close. It cannot change without a bend. Together it’s a kind of delicate sharing and holding of parts and bits and information with delicacy, floating just above the known.

Before Butterflies, Before Even Flowers

Graphite and watercolor on paper. 2017

22.25 x 21 Framed to: 24 x 25.5 in a maple hardwood frame

Available for purchase. Please email me for the price.

By Heart, By Memory

The Heart Keeps Looking For Itself

18 x 22 in. Mixed medium on paper. 2016

SOLD

Light lives everywhere: no legs, no breath, no need for shoes. Its unmooring effortless, nothing in tow. No need for hands: it does not take itself to be responsible. Light carries nothing, and the place it thinks, it is.”

-Segment of poem from Jan Zwicky in “Songs for Relinquishing the Earth

We often hope to outrun our growing pains, this notion of actualizing, of achieving a place where we will understand and no longer need to wrestle through our daily lives. The falsity that wisdom is stable and being good is doing things right.

We keep growing. We talk to ourselves, and I wonder who that other is- the one we are asking the questions to, or defending ourselves against, or silencing. We are not stable beings with stable answers, I cannot brainstorm a single thing that is. So we must keep learning, keep walking forward, keep being reintroduced to our new self, the one that’s taking in humanity, the one that knows wisdom is flexible and forgiving, the bend of a snakes back. We must be courageous to love ourselves, and be brave to stand up for others. We matter, our thoughts and bodies matter, our ideas and neighbors and earth matters. And as long as things matter, then we must continue to look for ourselves, and see how to grow next, one heartbeat at a time.

Tender

12.25 x 8×5 x 2.75, Porcelain and mixed medium

Available for purchase, please email me via my contact form for details.

Inversion

Graphite and watercolor on paper, 2017.

Image size: 23 x 44 in framed to: 23 x 44 maple hardwood frame

Available for purchase. Please email me via my contact form for more information.

Pink Heron

22 (l) x 6 (w) x 2 (h), Porcelain with acrylic. 2017.

Fronds and Furls

20×27 in watercolor and marker on paper. 2017

Please email me for purchasing information.

Geography of a Sundered Hymnal

Acrylic and gold leaf on paper. 9×14 framed to 16×20. 2017

SOLD

Giving Pause

8.5 x 21 in. Graphite on paper. 2016.

Available for purchase, please email me for details.

The Quiet Place

14 x 18 in. Acrylic on paper. 2016.

SOLD

Entangled

5 x 9 in. Gouache on paper. 2017

SOLD

Keeper of Malady

10.5 x 17.25 in. Watercolor and Gouache on paper. 2016.

SOLD

The shadow world has a caretaker, a keeper, a gentle friend. It knows every sickness in every body and it holds the memory of hurt. It is commonly believed that this creature is dark, a monster of ill spirit and malice, but according to the Ancient Wisdoms it is rather made of light and blossoms. It is a tender thing, with the embodied knowledge that pain does not separate us from beauty but rather binds us to it. It whispers reminders of self grace when things are just too hard, and sweetly reminds us how to bloom again from the darkness of the dirt.

Sheath

Available for purchase, please email me via my contact form for more information.

The Prayer My Heart Cannot Hold

13.5×17.5 in. Framed to 16×20.Acrylic and gouache on paper, 2017.

SOLD

Kindness

12×16 in. Graphite and watercolor on paper. 2016

SOLD

Our Embrace

16 x 30 in. Graphite and acrylic on paper. 2016

Available for purchase, please email me for details.

I embrace myself, constantly, invisibly. There are layers of muscle, tissue and bone that come together and move in accordance with each other in ways that make up and define so much of my life. I do not believe I think first and thus exist, instead I’m quite certain there is something deeper and primordial in the body. She was here, learning and piecing together an ancient evolution, holding the patterns of millions of years before I had my first coherent thought. I grew into both my mind and body, but for some reason always regarded one as more important, having perverse expectations of what my body should be able to do or accomplish. I left her to sit too long, eat poison and deprive her of rest. I ignored her pains and her shouts. I thought she was small and below my philosophy and ideal. It took almost losing her to relearn and see all of that ancient wisdom, it took obtuse amounts of pain and healing to really begin how to learn to inhabit her. To take her in and drink her up, to learn tenderness and kindness toward her feeble bones. We all embrace ourselves, every day. Skin to muscle to tissue to bone, loosely wrapped in the angular constrictions of our mind. I’m learning to reveal myself. To open. To hold loosely and look inside, with an honest question, void of guilt or despair.

Crowding in Silence

7.75 in. diameter. Acrylic on paper. 2016

SOLD

The Axis of the Interior

Limb from Limb

16x2o in. Graphite on paper. 2016

“Wolves play a very important role in the ecosystems in which they live. Since 1995, when wolves were reintroduced to the American West, research has shown that in many places they have helped revitalize and restore ecosystems. They improve habitat and increase populations of countless species from birds of prey to pronghorn, and even trout. The presence of wolves influences the population and behavior of their prey, changing the browsing and foraging patterns of prey animals and how they move about the land. This, in turn, ripples throughout plant and animal communities, often altering the landscape itself. For this reason wolves are described as a “keystone species,” whose presence is vital to maintaining the health, structure and balance of ecosystems.” -Living With Wolves

Grass is a plant that has a way of coming back, no matter how many times it is cut. It is the most widespread plant type, and one of the most valuable food sources on the planet.

When I think about the wolf debate, I think about my hope for a return- a return of balance, a renewal of a population who has been cut back almost to the point of extinction. I’ve drawn a wolf skeleton, made of grass, housing a baby pronghorn deer- one of the many species that thrive with a higher wolf population (less coyotes stealing their babies). The life of this keystone species leads to other life, and through it’s comeback, much like the grass, it can house and help sustain a more prosperous future.

Teach Us to Sit Still

14 x 18 in. Graphite and gold leaf on paper. 2016.

This piece is a personal mediation on what it means to exist in a broken body and find peace in pain. There are infinite ways to grow, and not all of them happen beautifully, but with keen eyes and deep breaths beauty can often be found in the liminal spaces, breaking open like a flower after rain.

Created for the Growth/Decay show at Paradigm Gallery. SOLD.

Teach Us to Care and Not to Care

14×18 in. Graphite and watercolor on paper. 2016

Disability doesn’t mean inability. In Dante, Dis is the world of Shadow and Reflection. Disability is then rather, able through shadow and reflection. (Kevin Kling) When I reflect on my body and the shadows it’s kissed, I think of grass; a thin thing, mowed down over and over from disease and trauma. I like it because it is frail and common, yet incredibly resilient. Grass is the only plant that can be taken down to it’s roots repeatedly and with intense frequency and still thrive. I think on all of the times I’ve been broken down to square one: losing my health, my loved ones, or my knowledge of how things work. The frequency in which everything I know has been obliterated, and yet through it all I somehow come back, feels mysterious and strong. My body, though in pain, has a kind of wisdom and is teaching me to be present. I have some blunt edges now, but they feel like scars of resilience. And so I put this knowledge down. These aren’t skeletons because skeletons are cool (which they are!), they are they only way I know how to fully depict my dis-abled experience.

Created for the Growth/Decay Show via Antler Gallery. SOLD.

Anthesis

12×12 in. Watercolor on paper. 2016

SOLD

There is a name for every season, for every connection and moment. It’s buried deep, often unspeakable, but a knowledge we carry nonetheless. ‘Anthesis’ is the name for the time period in which a bud blooms, and while it is a technical term, I can’t help but apply it to all of the short bursting moments in my own life and something long cultivated came forth. There is surprise and mystery even within ourselves, and we are connected to it by invisible words; tied to it by invisible threads.